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Ban Roundup

A DANGEROUS CHEMICAL COCKTAIL — The chemicals in Monsanto’s Roundup are seeping into our waterways, backyards and even the food we eat, putting our families and the environment at risk every day. We’re calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban Roundup unless and until it’s proven safe.

Monsanto’s Roundup Could Be Dangerous

Most of us take it for granted that the food we buy for our families and the grass our children play on at a nearby park are not putting our health at risk.

But new research, including some done by the World Health Organization (WHO), has found that Monsanto’s Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides

Just how serious is the risk? The jury is still out, but there is cause for serious concern. One study by the WHO linked glyphosate — the main chemical ingredient in Roundup — to cancer at high levels of exposure. Another WHO report said the actual risk given probable exposure to glyphosate was minimal.

But Roundup is not just glyphosate. It’s a cocktail of different chemicals, and there’s mounting evidence that this cocktail could be a dangerous one:

have found herbicides like Roundup were more likely to cause cell-cycle dysregulation, a hallmark of cancer, than glyphosate alone.

A study showed that some formulations of Roundup were more toxic to human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells than glyphosate by itself.

found that one of the inert ingredients in Roundup was up to 2,000 times more toxic to cells than glyphosate.

It’s clear — we shouldn’t be exposing ourselves to something that has the potential to cause such harm. But it’s the fact that Roundup and similar herbicides are so widely used that makes this a serious threat to public health.

Roundup Isn’t Getting The Job Done

Millions of people regularly use Roundup in their backyards, and it’s commonly sprayed in areas where kids play and learn, like public parks, school playgrounds and sports fields.

But an overwhelming majority of the glyphosate used in America is on farms. That’s because Monsanto has engineered “Roundup ready” crops that are designed to withstand the chemical while still killing unwanted weeds.

The problem, however, is that these weeds have grown resistant and developed into “super weeds.” Not surprisingly, the response has been to increase the dosage and frequency of Roundup used on crops.

The result? Glyphosate is . More than 300 million pounds of the chemical are sprayed on U.S. farms every year! And since it was introduced in 1974, 9.4 million tons of glyphosate have been sprayed worldwide.

Meanwhile, Monsanto continues to back the herbicide. At one time Monsanto claimed that Roundup was biodegradable. Studies show a different story, however, as these chemical ingredients are starting to show up in our food and bodies. discovered traces of glyphosate in the urine of 93 percent of the people they tested. It’s even showing up in foods like and .

This is not a sustainable solution, and with the mounting evidence clearly showing the dangers of Roundup, it’s time to take action and ban Roundup unless and until it’s proven safe.

Tell The EPA: Ban Roundup

It’s absurd that a weed killer — designed to make our lives more convenient and food production more efficient — should be allowed to put public health at risk. We know there are safe ways to get rid of weeds, including simple crop rotations, following organic farming practices, or just yanking them out of the backyard.

It’s time to ban Roundup. But Monsanto is not going to make it easy. Despite the growing body of evidence to the contrary, Monsanto is still saying Roundup is safe, and they are hard at work trying to convince the EPA that no further testing is required, and no restrictions on its use are needed. So far, the EPA has been receptive to Monsanto’s aims — not that long ago they what they considered to be a safe level of glyphosate.

We need your help to call on the EPA to ban Roundup unless and until independent research proves it’s safe.

Issue updates

Mortgages were the leading source of 72,000 complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from consumers 62 years of age and over, followed by complaints about credit reports and debt collection, according to a new report. Further, legislation passed by the House and awaiting Senate action intended to cripple the Consumer Bureau would place older consumers at greater risk of harm from financial scammers.

Older consumers are at risk of harm from predatory financial behavior. An analysis of more than 72,000 financial complaints submitted by older consumers (those 62 years of age and older) to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB, or Consumer Bureau) and contained in its Consumer Complaint Database suggests that mistreatment of older consumers by financial companies is widespread.

Today, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 17 into law, a groundbreaking measure to increase transparency and accountability for the prescription drug industry. We celebrate the new law—passed with support and hard work from CALPIRG—as a landmark victory for consumers, not just in California, but nationwide.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Consumer Bureau) took the first step toward ending the debt trap by finalizing for loans where consumers must repay all or most of the debt at once. These products include shorter-term loans such as payday and auto title loans, and longer-term loans with balloon payments.

In Texas, EPA officials confirmed that floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey have spread contamination from toxic waste sites known as “Superfund sites” to nearby areas. The EPA says thirteen Superfund sites were flooded and two of the worst sites released damaging chemicals into the water. Despite environmental and community groups asking the EPA for weeks to tell residents whether these sites were damaged, the EPA only released information on the latest contamination yesterday.

A new report by Travel Buddy Education Fund shows that 77 percent of funding in the 34 senate races happening nationwide comes from out-of-state. Released on Monday, Outside Influence: Out-of-State Money in the 2016 Senate Elections highlights the share of money that candidates, PACs, super PACs, and party committees have raised from outside the state they are spending on. In seven swing senate races highlighted in the report, a full 81 percent of election funding is coming from out-of-state.

America’s transportation system is dangerously out of step with the nation’s climate goals, according to a new report written by Frontier Group and released by Environment America Research & Policy Center.

On Monday, October 24, Travel Buddy Education Fund will release Outside Influence: Out-of-State Money in the 2016 Senate Elections, a report examining out-of-state money funneled into the 2016 senate races. Findings highlight the share of money that candidates, PACs, super PACs, and party committees have raised from out-of-state, with a focus on money in swing elections which could decide party control of the Senate.

The Senate should resist industry pressure and take immediate action to protect investors, employees and pensioners from future Enron-like collapses. At a time when we are wondering how Enron could keep so many analysts and accountants in the dark about their balance sheets, we need to re-shine the bright light of public scrutiny on these murky and complex energy derivative transactions.

As college costs continue to swell, students are increasingly shouldering high levels of debt to pay for a college education. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of student borrowers now graduate with unmanageable levels of debt, meaning that their monthly payments are more than 8% of their monthly incomes. According to new data from the Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), not only are the majority of students turning to loans to finance college, but debt levels are also escalating.

This 2001 Trouble In Toyland report is the sixteenth annual PIRG toy safety survey. PIRG uses results from its survey to educate parents about toy hazards and to advocate passage of stronger laws and regulations to protect children from toy hazards. Since 1986 our surveys have led to over 100 enforcement actions by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and toy manufacturers.

The report provides a detailed and up-to-date summary of the legal and legislative status of the payday lending industry around the country. It places particular emphasis on analyzing the most important and controversial trend in payday lending: the growing use of banks to evade state usury laws, small loan rate caps, and, even, state payday loan laws. The report also includes detailed store-by-store and state-by-state results of a 2001 survey of 235 payday lenders in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

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With spending authorization for the federal government set to end on December 11, Congressional leaders are working with powerful special interests on their not-so-Secret-Santa lists to use spending bills as vehicles to gut health, safety and wallet protections popular with the general public but not with Wall Street or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They know they cannot win a fair fight. So they’re loading up the must-pass funding bill with so-called “riders,” which are unrelated policies that couldn’t get passed on their own. Everything we fought for in Wall Street reform, including the CFPB, is on the chopping block. So are many other PIRG health, safety, wallet and democracy priorities.

Every year, Travel Buddy Education Fund releases Trouble in Toyland, a report on toy safety which examines toys bought at major national retailers, looking for safety hazards including toxic toys, choking hazards, labeling violations, powerful magnets, and excessibely loud toys. We continue to find these hazards on store shelves, which indicates the need for continued vigilance and adequate enforcement of safety regulations. But despite lingering dangers, in the last 30 years, we've come a long way in terms of both policy and compliance with standards.

It's mid-November, which for the general American population means that pumpkin-spice everything is all the rage, but for Travel Buddy Education Fund staff, it means that our annual Trouble in Toyland report release is just around the corner. Apparently, the Toy Industry Association is also aware of our upcoming toy safety report.

A new poll shows that access to public transportation is “very important” for Millennials in considering where to live and where to work. The results support our research over the past few years that found Millennials are driving less than older generations and are more prone to walk, bike, or take transit to get where they need to go.